support

• J. R. Randall: Religious language is not factual. It takes us beyond to the ultimate reality. RL is a human activity and has a unique function – to stir emotions and bind communities together.
• P. Ricoeur: The function of language is to articulate our experience of the world to give form to this expression. Through language we communicate our experience to others, forming new ways to conceive the world. Rather than suspending reality, a metaphor creates a new way of seeing or constructing reality and opening new understandings of God that are impossible to communicate by the literal use of language.
• McFague: Theology is metaphorical e.g. Trinity of Father, Son, Holy Spirit could become Mother, Lover, Friend.
• Erkia Dinker-von Schubert: Symbol expresses what is beyond rational recognition, it serves to distinguish the human from the animal world.
• Rowan Williams: The development of symbol in RL is not a process of the encrustation of an original, simple idea, with distracting and extraneous illustrations or ornaments. Like all other serious human discourse, RL requires a symbolic foundation. Images must be denied in their human sense so as to lead us back to silence and unknowing.